Lost!

Back in the day, when I first started working, people would carry around their fat little appointment books. There were calendars, phone number and address pages, slots for business cards... you know -- the stuff you had to carry around back in the dark ages before someone invented the palm pilot. I worked at a radio station, and I remember one time one of the salespeople lost her book; left it in a cab or something. And she was frantic, she was a mess. It was gone, and had to be totally reconstructed. From memory... ha!

So at least when you lose a pda, there's probably (hopefully?) a back up somewhere of your information. I'll be able to re-synch a new ipod from my computer, when my husband returns from his trip with my computer, and I'll be able to get most of my info back. Except that damned doctor's appointment that I have tomorrow. I wrote down the name of the new doctor, the address, and the phone number in the ipod. I wrote the time of the appointment on the calendar on the wall.

I think I remember the street name, so I'm going to call all the dermatologists on that street tomorrow and see if I have an appointment there at 9:15.

Our lovely electronic devices are supposed to make life easier. Unless they get lost, or their hard drive crashes, or they fall in the toilet, or the dog chews on them. It's not a perfect system for backing up my brain.

Our lovely electronic devices

Last school year Daniel brought a video game to school because a friend of his wanted to borrow it (a DS game, those tiny little things). Actually, for some unknown reason he brought his whole pack of games instead of the one. The pack of games was in his back pack during bio class, and then when he went to lunch, 20 min. later, they were gone. He thought he dropped them. Checked back through the classroom the hallways, the lunchroom. They were gone.

Our initial reaction was, of course, "WHY DID YOU BRING THOSE TO SCHOOL??" And then we told him that they were probably stolen. Daniel refused to believe that anyone could have stolen his stuff. Well, after days & weeks of looking, hearing some rumors, filing a police report, and setting up a sting, the perpetrator was caught and he replaced all of Daniel's games. It was a tough lesson and I think it hurt Daniel's faith in human nature. He was mad at himself, he was mad at the situation, and ultimately, even the return of his stuff was bittersweet.

Moving on to.... Today! I took my youngest to his Saturday enrichment class, and then went to a parent meeting about the 7 keys for college readiness. Yee ha. I multi-tasked during the meeting, with my laptop open on the table, trying to take care of teaching-related work while listening to the speaker. You see, Tuesday my hard drive crashed. I lost all my info from this school year -- my grades, my templates, my lesson plans... you name it. I just started using delicious.com for bookmarks, so I had a few of those saved, but many others were still just on my bookmark menu.

I taught through Tuesday without really knowing what I was teaching. I couldn't hook my laptop up to the projector to demonstrate a new concept. I had a hard copy of the week's lesson plans, but my brain was in a fog as I tried to puzzle out exactly what I had lost. And it's the end of the quarter! Grades are due!

With what was backed up to the network from the year before, I was able to recreate my grading sheets and lesson plan templates. By Thursday afternoon I had a replacement laptop, but my motivation had taken a severe blow. But my hubby send me a big bouquet of flowers, and I disappeared into some good yoga for a while, and came out of my funk able to let go of what I can't control. Move on. Back to work. Recreate what is lost. Start typing.

So, back to the meeting. I was reminded during the meeting of something I needed to add to my grocery list, so I took my itouch out of my purse and added some things to the never-ending list that I keep. I put the itouch back in my purse and zipped it. I remember this. The meeting ended soon after, so I put my computer away, grabbed my jacket, made a quick stop in the ladies' room, and then headed to the car. I had 50 minutes to get to the grocery store & shop before I had to be back to pick up Dominic.

I got to the grocery store and opened my purse to retrieve my never-ending list. Couldn't find the itouch. Dumped the purse. Nada. Went back to the car. No itouch. Drove back to the high school where the meeting took place. The itouch is not in the media center, the ladies' room, the hallways... no where. No one has turned one in. My itouch is gone.

I picked up Dominic, came home, and asked Daniel to come talk to me. I knew he would understand! I told him how upset I was. He hugged me and said, now you know how I felt when I came home from school that day... and yes I KNEW how he felt; I've lost important things before. But I was mad at myself; why didn't I put the damned thing in my pocket? Why did I lose it? Did it fall out? But I zipped the bag!!! He said, "Mom. It was probably stolen." And I said, "NO! I was in a parent meeting for God's sake!" Daniel just looked at me & shrugged.

I was really hooked on that itouch. My family gave it to me for Mother's Day. I used that cute little electronic device all the time. It organized me, helped me exercise, and was portable entertainment. I'm about to go do some yoga, to try to release this spasm that I'm working myself into. The itouch is just a THING, after all, a lovely electronic device but a thing, none the less. I don't need it. What I need is the love and comfort of my family. I have that. My kids gave me hugs. My sister in law (my wife! :-) ) gave me mental therapy. My husband gave me his sweet words and verbal hugs (see you in less than a week, babe!) My faith in human nature remains.

GF Apple Muffins, GF Brownie bites!

I want to pass along a couple of recipes that I've made in the past week. The first one is for apple muffins. I had an excess of apples last weekend, and children asking for muffins, so we got out the grater and got to work.

When you are doing gluten free baking, you have to mix different flours together to create something that works like wheat flour. There are lots of recipes out there that call for a mixture of rice, tapioca, and potato flour, or something of the sort, plus some xanthan gum to hold everything together once it is baked. Any gluten free cookbook will give you a couple of different flour mixes, and you can pull some together for a recipe, or mix a big batch and keep it fresh in the freezer for when you need it. OR... you can go to the local health food store and pick up a bag of GF flour. Yes it is expensive. SO much more expensive than regular flour. But I always keep a bag or two handy, just in case I run out of the other stuff. Or if I have to travel. I use Pamela's flour mix, which I buy from Amazon.com. It's much cheaper there. I like it, but I find it can make my baked goods a bit heavy.

I also have a bag of Jules brand "Nearly Normal" flour mix. I also like that, but I find that it can make my baked goods kind of dry. My favorite thing to do, when I'm in a hurry, is to mix the two together. Probably 10 different kinds of flour in there, but what the heck, it tastes good!

So, back to the muffins. Here's what I did:

1 1/4 cup Pamela's flour mix
1/4 cup Jules Nearly Normal flour mix
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 large apple, grated. I used Jonagold one time and Fuji the other.

Preheat oven to 350. Stir together the flours, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Mix together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the mixed dry ingredients, alternating with the milk. Stir in the vanilla and the grated apple. Scoop into greased muffin tins, and bake for 18-20 minutes. Take them out and eat them up! They are approx. 20 carbs each.

I found a new recipe for GF brownies in a book by Robert Landolphi, called "Gluten Free Every Day." I found the book while cruising around Amazon, and it had some fun recipes listed that I wanted to try, like Parmesan Popover Bites, Sesame Encrusted Salmon with Tropical Mint Salsa, and more. But... we were out of GF desserts, so brownies came first.

The recipe called for an 8 x 11 pan. I don't have an 8 x 11 pan. I have an 8 x 8, and a 9 x 13, neither of which would work very well. So I had the bright idea to use my mini muffin pan instead, and make "brownie bites," and just keep an eye on the cooking time. HA. Well, they really looked great. But the darned things stuck. Yes, I did grease the pans! But 95% of them stuck to the bottom of the muffin tin, so I ended up taking the tops off, taking a knife around the edge of the rest of the brownie, and then gently reuniting top & bottom with a prayer that they'd stay together. It's a damned good thing they were delicious, after all of that. Next time I try to do brownie bites I'll either put the little papers in, or put less brownie in the tins so they don't pop up like muffin tops.

The cookbook calls for "Authentic Foods Multiblend Gluten Free Flour." I've never seen that particular brand around my stores. So I did my Pamela's/Jules mix again. Here's what I did:

Preheat oven to 350. Butter an 8 x 11 inch pan.

3/4 cups butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup Pamela's flour mix
1/2 cup Jules flour mix

This is so easy -- it's all done in one bowl. Put the chocolate and butter in a large microwavable bowl. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir with a wooden spoon, then microwave for 1 minute more. Wait... that's what the book says. My butter was frozen, and I did 2 minutes the 1st time, stirred, then only 40 seconds the 2nd time because everything was almost melted. That's all I needed.

Stir until chocolate is melted & smooth. Stir in the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Gradually stir in the flour until blended. His recipe calls for optional walnuts which you can add at this point (1 cup), but I'm allergic to walnuts so I left them out.

Pour into prepared pan (or try your luck with mini muffin tins!!!). Bake for 40 to 45 minutes (I only did 18 minutes with the muffin tins) or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan. Cut into bars.

The brownies in the muffin tins ended up being 14 carbs each. That's another reason I like doing the muffin tins -- easy to count carbs that way.

Today has been pretty busy... lots of house chores and lots of cooking. What else is new? I'm going to finish my wine and prepare for tomorrow morning. More apple muffins are on the agenda.

New Insulin Pump

I saw the news on Diabetes Daily about the new insulin pump coming on the market next year from a company called Medingo. The pump is the Solo, and it is a tubing-free, tiny pump. You can detach from it when you need to. The web site is here.

If you live in the US, the company offers you the option of ordering a free demo kit. I put my order in today, and will let you know how responsive the company is and what we think of the demo.

It looks nice! But we've been fooled by products that look nice before (Pelikan Sun). So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

I thought I would have more time!

I thought I would have more time to write this summer. I thought I would drop in with a blog post here and there about our travels & adventures. But summer is a greedy monster and it is sucking time away from writing, which makes me sad.

We took a trip in the 2nd half of July across the country, so we had our first experience dealing with major travel & diabetes/celiac. Some great stories, some not so great. I want to write about them, but not all at once. Here are some quick impressions:

1. If you have to fly, and you have celiac, PACK FOOD. There is nothing for you at the airport. There is next to nothing for you on the plane. There's next to nothing for you on the plane even if you don't have celiac! Plan ahead, carry food.

2. The security personnel at the airports seemed to be quite knowledgeable about diabetes stuff and didn't give us any problems. Yay.

3. Stores at Yosemite park have lots of good food. It makes the natural splendor of Yosemite even more enjoyable.

4. It is helpful, if possible, to check local blogs/websites if you are looking for a place to eat that is celiac friendly. We stayed in places where we could do our own cooking, but there were a number of times we had to eat out. Thank goodness for all the bloggers out there!

5. Legoland says on its web site that it has gluten free hamburger buns. But when we got there, they were out of them. :(

Just some quick thoughts. More later, because the dryer just buzzed and I must get back on the laundry treadmill.

Gougeres, or Gluten Free Buns

I went to my friend Leah's house for lunch yesterday, and she served gougeres, which are cheese puffs made with Pate a Choux dough. Pate a Choux is what you use to make cream puffs. The little puffs were delicious, and I thought they reminded me, in texture, of the gluten free buns made by Against the Grain. Leah gave me the recipe so I could try them with gluten free flour. They turned out delicious! But they were small (Daniel made tiny sandwiches out of them).

I made them a second time today, much larger than the first time, to see how they would compare to the Against the Grain buns. They have a different consistency, and though they were really puffed to start with, they flattened as they cooled. I'll have to figure out how to stop that from happening. They taste good, though!

Here's what I did:

1 cup water
1 tsp salt
3 tsp sugar
6 tablespoons butter, cut in pieces
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour, sifted (I used the "Jules" brand GF flour mix)
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup grated cheese
freshly ground pepper.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In small saucepan over high heat, bring the water, salt, sugar, and butter to a boil, making sure the butter is completely melted. Off the heat, add the flour all at once and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon. Return to the heat and continue beating until the dough forms a solid, smooth mass and pulls away from the sides of the saucepan. Take off the heat and empty the dough into a clean mixing bowl. Little by little add the beaten eggs (I used a mixer), beating vigorously in between each addition, until the dough forms a smooth, supple mass. Mix in 1 cup grated cheese (the recipe calls for gruyere, but I didn't have that so I used a mix of mozzarella and asiago) and freshly ground black pepper.

The original recipe has you putting the dough into a pastry bag and piping it onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. I didn't have a pastry bag, so I just spooned the dough onto the parchment paper in large rounds and baked for 25 minutes. It made 6 rolls, at 21 carbs each.

The flavor was very good, but here are some changes I'd like to try:

Baking it for a bit longer.
Adding flax seed, or something else for fiber.
Actually using gruyere, which is so yummy.
Using a food processor instead of a mixer to see what that does to the consistency.

If you try this recipe and something works for you, let me know!

Quinoa Salad

It all started when I came back from vacation and looked at my garden. The weeds were trying to take over, especially the terrible morning glory-ish vines that try to strangle everything. Rising triumphantly over the weeds, however, were my basil and parsley plants, which flourished in my absence. Maybe I should go away some more? In addition, Matt had gone to the farmer's market and picked up some luscious, weighty, ripe tomatoes. As lunchtime approached, I thought about quinoa salad.

Quinoa is a fabulous grain, and great for people with celiac because it is gluten free and for diabetics because the protein in the grain keeps it from spiking your blood sugar. Quinoa is a complete protein with lots of fiber. It is okay on its own, but I like to dress it up a little. Here's what I did:

1 cup red quinoa (I found this at my local health food store).
1 1/4 cup water
1 large, weighty, luscious, ripe tomato, diced
1/2 raw zucchini, diced
1/4 cup craisins
1 loose cup parsley
1/2 loose cup basil
juice of 1/2 juicy lemon
3 T balsamic vinegar
3 T olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup crumbed feta cheese

Boil the water in a medium sized pot. Pour in the quinoa and cover; simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off heat, wait 5 minutes, then fluff & cool quinoa.

Put diced tomatoes, zucchini, and the craisins in a bowl. Finely chop the basil & parsley and put it into the tomato mizture. Toss in the cooled quinoa, and then toss in the lemon juice, vinegar, oil, and salt. Top with the feta cheese and serve.

This is a delicious power lunch, perfect for hot days!